Forever and Dead
by Sagaoosh
Summary: This is the sequel of Summer in Sweden. Hermione and Draco have returned to England and Hermione is faced with letting the world know that she's alive but really not. How will her friends (and the world) react to her absence, her condition, and her somewhat relationship with Draco? Short chapters!
1. Chapter 1

_This is a sequel of my other story Summer in Sweden! I strongly suggest that you read it first, if you haven't. This story will start extremely abruptly if you don't. Please enjoy_.

* * *

Entering the Malfoy Manor turned out to be not as bad as Hermione had expected it. The path leading up to the doors from the gates was covered in grovel and reminded her of the grovel path that had been at her grandmothers house. Besides it the grass was green and the creepy peacocks she'd caught a glimpse of last time were nowhere to be seen. The inside of the mansion was different, too. The high windows weren't covered in dark curtains and the overall darkness that she had remembered about the place was somehow almost completely gone.

"I'll show you to your room", Draco said behind her and she stopped in her tracks.

"My room?" she asked, because she hadn't thought of her coming with them would involve anything like her actually staying with them sort of permanently. The very least in an own room.

Draco shook his shoulders.

"You don't have to use it if you don't want to. It's mostly because of tradition", he answered and she nodded in understanding. She and Draco wasn't in any way officially in a relationship, so offering her a room would be the custom thing to do. Draco showed her too it, lying a few doors down in the same corridor as his.

She opened the door reluctantly and hitched her breath when she stepped inside. Then she laughed.

"This is the most unMalfoy-ee room I have ever seen", she said and turned back to look at Draco, who grimaced a little bit.

"I totally agree with you", he answered as he peered around in it too. It had big windows at the end of it, and was filled with big furniture going in dark brown and white colour tones.

"Show me yours", Hermione stated after examining her room, and Draco's eyebrows arched at her.

"Why?" he replied, the entertainment not really hidden.

"It's good manners to show guests around, you know. I should really tell your mom-…", she started, but was interrupted with a laughing "fine" and she followed Draco back out into the corridor.

"I'm glad I don't have to worry about sunlight anymore. That would have sucked in a house like this", she stated as they headed down to the second door on the right. When in front of it, Draco moved his hand in a way that told her he had a personal lock on it, and the doors opened up in front of them.

"Welcome to my room", Draco said and stopped in the opening, watching Hermione intently.

The room was even less like she would have thought it to e. It did go in black and green tones, but somehow it looked extremely elegant instead of tacky and evil like she had imagined every room in the manor to be like.

He had more and bigger windows than her and a bigger bed, and his walls were covered in bookcases. In a corner stood a big desk and in built in front of the windows were the most inviting window seats she'd ever seen. He had no pictures on the walls and it was all exceptionally tidy, but the variation of books in the shelves served to give the room enough of personality.

"It's like a mini library", she said after a while. Draco chuckled.

"I got a bit tired of walking back and forth to the library", he answered. "It's in the other end of the house. Besides, this room is a bit too big to only sleep in."

She finally stepped inside and he closed the doors behind them. She took a closer look at the bookcase closest to her, and was a bit surprised by the content that she saw. She reached up and touched the spine of a book that was exceptionally fat and looked exceptionally old and had the title 'Healing everything from a black eye to dark curses'.

"I'm sensing a theme", she said when she'd continued to the next bookcase and looked back at Draco, who was leaning against the bed. She wouldn't have sensed his awkwardness if not for the hiccup in his heartbeat, and she raised her eyebrows questioningly at him.

"It's a good theme, I'm not judging. I'm just… surprised", she continued and turned back to the books.

"Healer Draco Malfoy…", she muttered after a while, trying it out on her tongue and finding that it actually didn't sound so bad.

"…and vampire Hermione Granger", she added with a sigh and lowered her raised hand, stopping in midair and observing the ring on her finger that fitted so well in with the room.

"I talked to Dad the other day about going to St Mungo's with you", Draco suddenly said and Hermione felt like as if every hair on her body stood up in agony.

"What?" she managed after a while.

"They can't treat you, but they can help you adjust. Like Carl said. They can provide you with… what you need, and help you with whatever else, if you've decided to settle down amongst, you know. Us."

She turned around and gaped at him.

"They do that?"

"Of course. The Ministry's laws regarding vampires are weirdly good. As long as you behave they are obligated to help you. I'm guessing a few vampires have had quite influential spots in the Ministry back in the years for it to be like that, because even if you're still considered as beasts, you're… you have potential to be well-behaved beasts."

Hermione frowned at him.

"Are you kidding with me? But the laws regarding werewolves…"

"…are different because vampires don't have to depend on a potion that is extremely difficult to make and might not even work properly to keep their sanity in place. If a vampire just makes sure to not go around hungry and possess at least a little bit of a decent personality, they won't go hazard and kill anybody they stumble upon once a month. There is quite the difference."


	2. Chapter 2

Draco silenced and watched Hermione as she took in what he had said. She was surprised by it, but perhaps even more surprised that she didn't knew about it in the first place. They had learned about vampires in Hogwarts, but very little of it had been about how they lived in the modern world today. The only thing that had been mentioned were the solutions where they lived together with a bunch of other vampires someplace far off in the loneliness, like Carl's place in Sweden.

"How come no vampires take advantage of it then? I've never heard of it before", she asked after a while. Draco shrudded.

"There's records of a few vampires living amongst us once in a while. But I don't know. I suppose they tire of being different. I mean, I think it's boring living in Sweden in a house which is supposed to be inhabited by loads of people, but they're asleep when I'm awake and vice versa. If I ever wanted to socialize with any of them, which I'm guessing you want to if you decide to live in a situation like that on your own accord, it'd honestly be awful."

Hermione didn't seem to be listening very intently on what he'd just said, however. Draco watched her for a while until he grew bored and sighed.

"Anyway. We don't have to go immediately. But in the upcoming days we'll have to, at least", he said and his voice seemed to abruptly bring her out of whatever she was thinking about. She suddenly looked uncertain again.

"There's no use in postponing it, you know. We need to go there. And you need to announce that you're alive, too. The sooner we do it the sooner the mess will clear up."

She sighed visibly and nodded. Then her expression changed to one of determination and stealth.

"We'll go tomorrow", she responded and Draco nodded in confirmation. Tomorrow was good. Draco took a step away from the bed and motioned towards the door again.

"Come on, I might as well show you around a bit more. It's tea in half an hour."

When they half an hour later stepped out on the backyard, Draco still had not even shown her half of the house. Hermione was a bit flabbergasted by how big it actually was, because even if the mansion looked huge from the outside, the rooms and corridors inside seemed to never ever end as well.

The backyard was big and open and bathed in the sun, and Hermione was confronted with all the smells that come along a well-kept and thriving garden. Draco's parents were seated under a parasol and looked remarkably well fitting into the atmosphere for being Malfoy's. Narcissa was wearing a light dress and Lucius, however still extremely well dressed, was lightly clothed with only trousers and a dress shirt. Hermione smiled at the sight of them, because never in her right mind would she have though to see the two adults in an image like this.

She and Draco sat down as well, but Hermione decidedly took the spot in the sun. Just as bad the weather had been in Sweden this very morning, as good was the weather in England now. It humoured Hermione for a second, because it generally used to be England that was the rainy country.

"Do you want something?" she suddenly heard Draco ask, and she shook her head. She didn't feel like tea, and she didn't want to fool her body that she was drinking when she really wasn't.

Soon an elf came out from the house carrying a tray with three cups and a steaming kettle. Hermione didn't recognize the elf, because it wasn't Cranky, but she chose not to ask about it. She didn't feel in position to really question Lucius and Narcissa's choise of helpers when she's supposed to be a guest. The elf placed the trays content on the small table under the parasol and headed back inside. Hermione looked after it, noting that it looked like a female one, and a quite young one as well. She turned back to the Malfoy's and watched them pour tea for themselves, suddenly wondering what really was the point with drinking tea out in the sun.

Her attention was soon caught by the garden. It covered everything in her sight and was big, green and literally overflowing with life. She could hear the sound of water in the distance and she closed her eyes for a moment. Feeling the sun burn on her cheeks suddenly reminded her of when she was young and used to spend the summers in the backyard of her childhood home, playing cards with her mom in the grass or taking care of the flowers with her dad and pointing out whenever a flower blossomed under her bare hands.

Suddenly there was a scent that she recognized from more present time, and she opened her eyes abruptly and sat up straight. The gaze of all three Malfoy's fell on her, but she didn't notice.

"Crookshanks?" she asked out loud because that was the only thing that came up in her mind. She had never felt Crookshanks scent like she did now, but an instinct thought in her mind told her that it was Crookshanks and nothing else.

She stood up and took a few steps out towards the garden.

"What are you doing?" Draco asked behind her, but she didn't answer.

"Who's Crookshanks?" she barely heard Narcissa whisper, followed by a sigh from Draco.

"Her crazy cat."


	3. Chapter 3

She stood still for so long that the Malfoy's lost interest and went back to chatting about their plans for tomorrow. She could still smell Crookshanks, a nice scent that reminded her of books and old furniture and fur. She couldn't see him, however, because the garden was heavily furnitured with trees and bushes and hedges, but then all of a sudden there was a streak of orange between the green and the cat came walking towards her in such a slow, non-bothering pace that it made Hermione chuckle. She sunk to her knees when the cat reached her and Crookshanks familiar sound of purring reached her before they even touched. She drew her hands along his face and laughed, her mind overflowing with memories and the fact that Crookshanks was still alive and had been able to find her, when she'd not even been here for five hours.

"You're such a clever cat", she coaxed and earned an affectionate headbutt in response. After a few minutes of re-uniting she stood up and turned back to the Malfoy's. She cleared her throat.

"Er, meet my cat, Crookshanks", she said and motioned down to the cat, which was now sitting next to her feet and peering up at the three humans. The reaction from the Malfoy's was slow.

"Is that even a…" Narcissa asked with a questioning frown in her forehead.

"He's a half cat, half kneazle", Hermione interrupted and Narcissa's frown was replaced with a look of surprise. Draco chuckled.

"While that explains his crazy mood, it doesn't justify him being dead ugly", Draco said and Hermione glared at him.

"You know nothing about him", she responded but Draco just chuckled even more.  
"Are you kidding? This cat was everywhere all the time and only got along with the weirdest people. I think I even saw him in the Slytherin common room once. He's got even worse reputation than Mrs. Norris."

At that Crookshanks rose up and approached the three of them, who all silenced and looked down. He glared at Draco, to begin with, then Narcissa, before decidedly approaching Lucius, stretching out and lying down underneath his seat. Hermione, Draco and Narcissa all in surprise looked up at Lucius, who looked up from the cat without any trace of reaction on his face. Draco chuckled once again.

"I told you, the weirdest people", he repeated and looked back at Hermione.

The rest of tea went without any further fuss. Hermione sat back down on her seat, and a while later Crookshanks left his spot under Lucius and jumped up in Hermione's lap. She didn't engage much in the others conversations and took the time to enjoy the nice weather and her cat's presence. They had reunited after the war, since she'd been forced to leave him at the Burrow after Bill's wedding, but when she'd left England for her research trips she'd left him under Harry's care at Grimmauld Place. She didn't know how long Crookshanks had stayed there, or for how long he'd been lurking around the Malfoy mansion, or how he'd known she'd be here of all places when she came back, but she didn't question him. He was a brilliant cat, end of story.

The purring sound and warmth that Crookshanks leaked filled her gut with a strong feeling of affection, and she suddenly wondered why there was not a single fibre in her being that wanted to feed on the cat, even if she was still very aware of alive he was. Instead her chest warmed up in a way that made it feel like her heart was swelling and all she could think of was how relieved and grateful she was to see Crookshanks still alive.

The feelings brought a faint smile to her lips, and she glanced up at Draco, who was still chatting boringly with his mother. The feeling in her chest changed from single-handed affection to something that felt alarmingly much like _need_.

Draco looked up and met her eye, and when she felt her own heartbeat stutter in it's pace, she frowned. Draco frowned back with a questioning look in her face, but Hermione only shook her head and dipped her head back down to refocus on Crookshanks. She didn't notice how Draco's gaze lingered on her for a while longer, still now and then chatting with his mother about things he could care more for.

After a while she heard Draco rise, felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up.

"Come on, let me show you the rest of the house before dinner", he said and she nodded. Crookshanks jumped down from her lap and followed them inside, as if he knew his way perfectly well already.

Showing off the house took its time, because it was big and filled with rooms of different uses and non-uses. Draco saved the worst and the best for the last, because the rooms the Dark Lord had taken into his use the most were also the ones that lay in almost direct connection to the library. He silently led her through those rooms, because even if they didn't look like they had back then, the memories still stirred uncomfortable feelings in his stomach. When he stopped to open the big pair of doors that crowned the library, he felt a warm hand on his wrist and stilled.

"I'm sorry", he heard Hermione murmur, and he looked up at her. She looked sad and broke their eye contact.

"I mean… I can't imagine all the things you must have experienced here. In your own _home_", she continued with a strained tone, as if she was having a hard time just picturing it. The fingers around his wrist caressed his skin slightly before dropping, and he found himself utterly confused about the matter that was Hermione.

She was correct, of course. Having places in the house he was supposed to regard as the most secure place in the world that filled his gut with so much dread and fear wasn't exactly comforting. He had memories of people dying in here that probably never would falter from his mind, but when compared to memories he knew other people had, he found himself having trouble actually complaining. He had walked out of the war with the two most important persons in his life alive, and that was a lot better than how it'd been for many others.

She re-met his gaze after a while and he leaned closer, stopping only when their noses were touching. He felt her take a big breath and lean into his face, their lips barely not touching and he felt hot anticipations pool in his gut. He angled his face a little bit and exhaled slowly as Hermione suddenly inhaled sharply. Then her hands were suddenly grasping his neck and she pulled him in so that their lips crashed against each other hard and hot, her mouth willingly and eagerly opening up against his.


	4. Chapter 4

The kiss quickly turned intense and Draco's hands had long left the handles of the library doors, now grasping tightly at Hermione's sides. She let him press her up against the doors and silently moaned into the kiss, her hands still gripping his hair tightly, eventually forcing him to let her mouth go and lean his head back to ease her grip. The angle exposed his neck to her and a rough chill travelled through his spine when she started kissing it, starting from right under his left ear and continuing all the way to what she could reach of his collarbones before his shirt became in the way. He closed his eyes and simultaneously relaxed and tensed under her mouth, his hands sneaking under the hem of her shirt and finally feeling the soft flesh of her stomach under his hands. Her kisses eventually reached back to his chin, and he leaned back down to catch her lips with his. Her tongue darted out to meet his and she tasted sweet and fresh and unlike any girl he'd ever kissed. He pressed if possible closer to her, and she happily obliged when he let his hands slide down her thighs and lifted them up so that he was practically pinning her against the doors. She hooked her legs around his hips and he groaned at the fraction the closeness caused. Her arms were locked around his neck, dividing her weight between the wall, his hips and his shoulders. Not that he felt the weight of her, not when she sighed contently against his mouth and eagerly met his movements with a slight arch of her back and twist of her hips.

He was dangerously close to lose any capability of sense when he broke lose from her mouth and buried his face in her hair.

"We shouldn't…", he started, because just as much as his mind told him _not here_, the rest of him practically screamed out in silent plead for more. He was achingly hard and the taste of Hermione still lay heavy on his lips.

Beneath him Hermione was taking a couple of heavy breaths before she untangled her legs from his waist and stood back down on the floor. He could see the agreement in her, but also how her lips were swollen and damp, her cheeks flushed and the small slit of iris visible bordering on her vampire-red instead of brown.

She nodded and suddenly looked self-conscious, as if she could barely believe what they'd nearly done in a room like this. He grinned at her, leaning closer for a softer and shorter kiss, silently hoping she understood what he was trying to say.

When he retrieved, she straightened up and met his eyes with a gaze that still made him want to not bother about decency at all, although he was fairly sure she wasn't knowingly doing it.

At last, he opened the doors and showed Hermione what could probably be called the treasure of the mansion. The library was bigger than the one Carl had, even though it couldn't quite compete with the age Carl's library's books possessed. They had a whole section of unpublished books and notebooks of people that _should_ have gotten books published, collected many years ago by his grandmother. They also had a good amount of books in foreign languages, many of which Draco had not yet bothered to translate, except for the most interesting one's.

Beside him Hermione was standing wide-eyed.

"Wow", she mumbled after a while, and Draco stepped inside properly, slowly ushering Hermione to step inside too. Her gaze travelled up to the high ceiling, and to the extremely high windows that went almost from floor to ceiling. The library took up the height of two storeys in one story and was the largest room in the house. The high windows were the one of few in the house actually covered in thick cloth, hindering the bright sunrays from bleaching the books. The room was dimly light up with a few lamps here and there, but enough to show up it's complete potential, as if it wanted to give Hermione the best first impression it could. Draco knew it was Cranky's work, but the effect seemed to do well.

Unfortunately, they didn't manage to spend much time in there before Cranky showed up from behind the library doors. Hermione, who was lingering along the bookcases holding books on Arithmancy, broke away reluctantly when Cranky told them it was time for dinner.

They walked in silence back to the dining hall, Draco only quickly stopping in the hallway outside to fix his collar when they passed a mirror.

Dinner went pleasantly enough, in Draco's opinion. Hermione seemed distant and neither said nor ate barely anything, but Draco could think of a few things to occupy her mind. The sun outside was just setting when they left the dining room, and Hermione stopped in front of a window in a corridor, a tense frown barely visible on her forehead. Draco stopped in his tracks and looked back at her.

"Oi, Hermione to earth. How are you?"

His tone seemed to break her mood and she glared at him. Then she sighed.

"My mind is just going crazy with all these thoughts", she muttered after a while and looked back out the window. He stepped a bit closer.

"About what?"

She shrugged and took her time before answering.

"Everything. Tomorrow. Books. The future. St Mungus. Harry and Ginny and Ron and your parents and Crookshanks. House-elves and vampire's and the Ministry and death and life and the war and, and…", she silenced. "And you."

"What about me?" he asked, because honestly, all the other topics were to depressing to want explained. If he was grinning a little, he couldn't help it. She glared back up at him, the look he so well remembered from their school years back in her face.

"You're an ass."


	5. Chapter 5

When Draco woke up the following morning he found Hermione sitting in one of the window seats in his room, letting too much sunlight into his room than he'd like at this time of the hour. He sat up and sleepily ran a hand up his face and through his hair.

"Have you slept at all?" he asked eventually, peering with squinted eyes up at her. She turned around and met his eyes, her expression calmer and more at ease then he'd expected it to be.

"A little", she responded at last, and Draco rose from the bed to head for the connected bathroom.

An hour later they were ready to leave the mansion. Narcissa stood waiting for them by the front doors, and as she said a few things to Draco, she only smiled reassuringly at Hermione whenever she looked at her, and when they hooked arms to let Narcissa apparate them, Hermione's heart clenched a bit when she felt a soft squeeze from the older woman. Narcissa warming up to her had been a surprise, but a pleasant one. Then after all, since after the war was sorted out, Hermione had always had the image that Narcissa had seemed as an understandable human.

The sudden tug in her stomach brought Hermione back to reality and in the next moment they were standing in an alley with sharp, bright sun peering down at them through the rooftops. She suddenly wished she'd dressed a bit more anonymously, but she didn't have much clothes to choose from, and as they were heading through the muggle part of London to get to St Mungus, she couldn't hide in a wide cloak either. As she followed Narcissa and Draco out of the alley, she took a deep breath and told herself it was just as well not to hide. The crowd startled her for a second, until she stepped closer to Draco and leaned her face down on his shoulder, letting him steer a way through the mass of people. She closed her eyes, let her feet wander straight ahead, and listened to the explosions of sounds around her.

As her mouth and nose were met with the nothingness of Draco, the noise suddenly seemed exceptionally loud. It seemed as if she heard a thousand people talking at once, all of them from time to time screaming right next to her about things that were too private to yell out like that. She heard the sound of eating, drinking, kissing, burping, laughing, snoring, yelling, snickering, teasing, running, walking, dancing, playing, humming, sighing.., the sound of music blasting out of stores, cards being swopped, receipts being printed, bags being rumbled in, pigeons cackling, someone asking for a spare penny.

"We're here", Narcissa suddenly said and Draco stopped in their tracks. Hermione looked up from his shoulder and saw the closed store that was St Mungo's in front of her.

They stepped inside before Hermione could start thinking of what those steps were leading up to. They entered into the waiting room, where no one seemed to bring them any bigger attention. It was calmer and quieter than Hermione had ever seen it, and she followed Narcissa and Draco past the line up to the receptionist and directly to the first floor. They reached a smaller waiting room, where Narcissa reported them to the lady sitting behind a small window with piles and piles of paper. They sat down and Hermione took a deep breath. So far no one had seemed to notice her, recognize that she was supposed to be missing and presumably dead. The little room, beside the three of them, only held three other people, two of which were silently whispering to each other about mice. The third sat in the corner and seemed knocked out or asleep, Hermione couldn't quite tell.

A healer Hermione vaguely recognized appeared in the doorway and eyed through a piece of paper. The way his forehead suddenly frowned in confusion told her it was her he was coming for.

"Granger?" he asked out loud, looking up when Hermione determined stood up. The two whispering men silenced and glanced back at her, but the healer seemed to re-gather his position and motioned for her to step forward.

"Come with me", he said, and Hermione followed him through the hallway, with Draco and Narcissa in tow. The healer led them to an even smaller examination room to the left, thankfully empty of other patients or healers. The healer sat down by a messy table and sighed.

"First things first, my name's Augustus Pye", the healer said and Hermione suddenly remembered who he was.

"You're the one who tried to stitch up Mr Weasley", she outed and Mr Pye grimaced at her.

"Right. I suppose you'd remember that. That's not what you're here for thought, is it?" Mr Pye answered and was interrupted by a knock on the door. He rose up to open it, and returned with a small file in his hands, which he opened up and started eyeing through.

"Miss Hermione Granger, you've been her twice as a patient before. The first time directly after the Great Battle to check on your wounds, then one time after that for a follow up in case of side effects from being tortured. Am I right?"

Hermione nodded stiffly, not overly fond of remembering how full of misery the hospital had been back then when everyone finally got thoroughly mended of their wounds.

Mr Pye sat back down in the chair in front of her and eyed her sternly.

"When were you bitten?" he suddenly said and surprised them all with his sudden question.

"I'm not quite sure. About half a year ago", Hermione eventually answered.

"You're not sure? You have no memory of it?" Mr Pye asked and Hermione shook her head. He nodded and wrote something down in his papers.

"How many times have you fed since the transformation?"

"Only once, I guess. At the time of my turning", she replied and the healer suddenly stiffened.

"Oh. Wait just a second then", he said and rose again from the table, heading for another door to his left, which seemed to lead to some kind of storage. He re-emerged with a blood bag in his hand, and Hermione uncertainly took it when he handed it to her.


	6. Chapter 6

Even though the blood was cold in her hands, every little fibre in her seemed to suddenly revolt and reach for it, and she was unaware of how the three others in the room were watching her intently. She undid the cap that was covering the tube, and the smell that came through it felt like nothing she had ever experienced before. She inhaled deeply and when she suddenly felt the blood between her lips, it felt like she was waking up from a life-long sleep of numbness.

The bag emptied soon enough, and she took a deep, open-mouthed breath to clear her thoughts. Her eyes suddenly flickered to the people around her, first noticing Narcissa, who was sitting beside her and looking concerned and a bit disturbed, then Draco, who stood behind them and frowned slightly and last Mr Pye, who was nodding to himself and writing some more stuff done.

"That seemed to be needed. Well, to continue. I'm writing you up as a subscriber, and you'll have two to four bloodbags a month delivered to you're home, depending on how much you'll want. Where do you currently resident?"

"With us", Narcissa answered with a glance at Hermione, who was still overwhelmed with the feeling of no constant churning in her stomach. Mr Pye raised his eyebrows in surprise and looked between Hermione and Draco.

"Oh, okay. I see then. The Malfoy Manor it is. Just let the hospital know if… if that changes. Then I'd just like to do a customary check, miss Granger, because even if you're body is technically dead, I'll have to write it…"

"It's not."

Mr Pye froze in his writing and looked up.

"What?"

"I'm not dead."

Mr Pye stared at her, before his gaze suddenly dropped to her throat. Then he reached up and lay to fingers against her artery, and his eyes widened.

"That's impossible", he stuttered and pulled his hand back. Hermione stiffened in her seat.

"You have a wov of silence, Mr Pye…", she suddenly heard Draco behind hear and Mr Pye's head snapped up to meet Draco's. He nodded slowly.

"Yes, of course. Of course, I wont say a thing", he said and regained his posture, his gaze returning to Hermione. Then his gaze shifted.

"I understand. I do. I'd like you to come back in in two weeks, miss Granger, just for a check up. You can expect the first delivery by next week. If there's ever anything you need, don't hesitate to contact me. I'm guessing the upcoming days will be eventful for you. I don't think those two gentlemen in the waiting room have been very silent while we've been in here."

When Hermione rose up from her chair to leave, she felt longer and stronger than she'd ever been. She had to slow down her feet delibaretaly to stay in line with Draco and Narcissa as they exited the examination room, and they found the corridor surprisingly empty.

"There's a lot of people in the main waiting room", Hermione stated. Narcissa nodded and grasped Hermione's arm. Her movement seemed slower than a sloths, and Hermione had to focus hard on the woman.

"I'll go ahead. It'll cause a little less attention, perhaps", Narcissa said and then left them.

"The effect won't feel as strong when you've gotten used to feeding", Mr Pye said beside her. "You'll get used to it", he nodded and then left the other way. Draco looked after him, before meeting Hermione's eyes. He looked too relaxed in comparison to how she felt, and she suddenly wished she cared a bit lesser about what people were going to say. What her friends were going to say. She knew how Draco felt about it, that if they didn't take it good, they weren't worthy of being called a friend. She knew he was somewhat true, on the same time as she internally allowed people to react badly.

She was somehow dead, after all.

They headed for the entrance and the noise of people got clearer for every step they took. It was obvious the two men in the waiting room had done the opposite of being silent, and she was suddenly thankful she wasn't craving blood like she had just half an hour ago. Sitting next to Mr Pye had been a hundred time's easier once she'd finished the blood bag, and so hearing all those people being crowded up in a small space didn't terrify her as much as she'd feared.

The second they stepped out in the waiting room, seemingly a hundred flashes went off in their faces, reminding her of the dream she'd had earlier this summer. The flashes continued to go off, but she quickly got used to them and managed to distinguish the people in front of her. She recognized a few of them, mostly reporters and journalists that had been in similar positions in front of her after the war. Most of the other people were mere strangers and only the healers seemed to do their job and try to stir up the mess.

The two of them made their way through the crowd, Hermione's mind screaming with all the questions that were being thrown at her. Sooner than she expected she felt Draco's arm around her shoulders and the familiar tug was back in her stomach.


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning Hermione's return was worldwide news. The Daily Prophet had her picture on the front page, together with a two-page article that didn't really tell anything at all. The questions were obvious (the usual 'where had she been', 'what had she done at St Mungo's', 'what was Draco doing with her' etc) and the guessed answers ridiculous. The biggest picture was focused on her solely, looking into the camera for a fleeting second and then away again, and the smaller one in the corner of the article showed Draco's arm closing around her neck and apparating away. Hermione understood how questionable it probably looked, because the arm that had felt calming and protective looked claiming and tight on the photograph.

She sighed and took another sip from her first cup of tea in some time and glanced up at Draco who was reading the paper over her shoulder. They were alone at the table, only Crookshanks accompanying them under the chairs.

"That wasn't so bad. They're blindly guessing through the entire thing", Draco stated when he'd finished reading and Hermione nodded and closed the paper back together.

They spent the day doing nothing but read the letters for Hermione that came in a steady pace all day (Draco a bit reluctantly and annoyed but reading nonetheless). Most of them were the same and contained of the same questions the Daily Prophet hadn't been able to answer, and only a handful came from people she actually knew in person.

The afternoon was turning into evening when Hermione picked up a letter that made her heart pace up in nervousness.

_"Please come visit. We're still staying at Grimmauld Place. Ginny" _was all it said and Hermione reread it so many times she eventually caught Draco's attention, who snatched the letter out of her hands. He frowned.

"Grimmauld Place?" he asked out loud and looked back up at Hermione. She nodded.

"Grimmauld Place 12?" he repeated and it was Hermione's turn to frown.

"Yes. How'd you know that?"

"It's supposed to be ours. I know Black got it, but his parent's never wanted him to have it."

"He didn't really want it. But it was handy to have. Harry inherited it when Sirius died", Hermione said. "He stayed there after the war as well, even though I tried to talk him out of it. It's not really a handy place to raise a kid in."

"A kid?"

"Yes. Teddy Lupin. Your cousin Tonks and Remus child. Harry's his godfather, and just right after the War, his grandmother Andromeda, your aunt, had a bit of trouble taking care of him because she was also dealing with the death of both her husband and only child. She and Harry agreed on taking care of him together."

She silenced and stared at the letter in his hands, without really reading it. They were lying in his bed with small piles of letters around them, and if Hermione hadn't been deep in her own thoughts, she'd wondered why Draco was still silent.

"He'll be five now", she mumbled after a while and seemed to bring Draco out of his own thoughts.

"Will you go?" he asked and she frowned.

"I'll go tomorrow", she responded eventually and took the letter back. Draco picked up a new letter and swiftly read it through with a bored expression back on his face, but Hermione rolled around so that she was facing Draco and pressed her face against the sleeve of his arm. She felt more than saw the expression Draco gave her when she did, but she didn't bother and just relaxed. His non-existent smell that she'd learnt to associate with safety didn't give a sad tug in her stomach like it had two days ago, like the smell had been there to say; "I'm here but you can't have me". Only now when it didn't had she recognized that it had, and she spent the next minutes absorbed in the sounds Draco's body made, and she smiled weakly.

"You're hungry", she said and earned a huff from Draco in reply.

"It'll soon be supper", he replied and his stomach gave another sound by the mention of dinner.

Half an hour later, though, when Cranky appeared to announce that supper was, in fact, ready, Draco found Hermione silently asleep against his shoulder. He glanced up at the windows and the small gaze of sunlight they let inside. It'd been an extraordinary sunny day and Draco had learned by now that those were the one's that made Hermione the sleepiest.

He left her asleep in the bed and headed down for dinner. It was quite boring and formal like most of their dinners and when he returned she hadn't moved an inch. He pulled the curtains closed and settled in the bed to continue reading the letters. He'd been reluctant in the beginning, and then a bit annoyed by the overall lack of originality, but the more letters he read, the more he began to understand the picture ordinary people had of Hermione. It almost shocked him a bit, to read letter after letter from people Hermione stated she didn't know but still addressed her like she was a dear friend, a parental figure, or even a child that needed reprimanding. It made him a bit nauseous, figuratively, and he thought of the period right after the War and how the magazines had overflowed with scopes on the Golden Trio for months later. He suddenly understood the decision to go on yearlong research-trips in other countries.

He fell asleep two hours later with a letter only half read on his stomach.


	8. Chapter 8

The Daily Prophet the following morning had more to go on than the day before. Someone in St Mungo's had taken a picture of them with a muggle cell phone, and while Draco looked perfectly normal in the picture, Hermione didn't. The picture was taken in a moment when the flash of another camera went off, and Hermione's eyes were reflecting the light like no human pupils actually did. The reporter was smart enough to guess that whatever caused the reflecting eyes probably was why she was at St Mungo's in the first place, but her guesses of causes were plenty and the vampire-guess only ironically stated.

Still, the cat was suddenly somewhat out of the bag. Everyone would know something was different know, she hadn't just been missing and then returned completely safe and sound. Something had officially _happened_.

She reluctantly left the Mansion alone and apparated on her own to Grimmauld Place. She'd liked to have Draco accompanying her, but her logics told her better. When she found herself on the familiar block, it took a while for her to notice that the Fidelius charm had been lifted. She frowned at the number 12 in front of her, shutting out the sounds of the other tenants around her and taking a breath of relief when it seemed only two people were in there.

She stepped up the stairs and knocked carefully on the door, uncertain whether the portrait of Mrs Black was still there. The house looked mostly like it had when she left on the outside, but there had still been a lot to do indoors to make the house really a home.

Harry's, Ginny's and Teddy's home.

The door suddenly opened in front of her and she was met with the figure of Ginny, long and slender and the long, red hair hanging straight over her shoulders. Hermione gaped at her, because even if Ginny looked the same, she was completely different. She felt older, more adult and smelled completely different, and when Ginny flung her arms around Hermione's shoulders, she suddenly realised what it meant.

"You're pregnant", Hermione whispered as her arms found life to return the hug, the fact plugging her mind from any other impressions. Ginny froze around her, pulled back and stared at Hermione. Hermione stared back.

"How'd you…", Ginny began but suddenly silenced when another familiar figure appeared in the doorway. Harry, on the other, looked not very different from what he had a couple of years ago, his black hair going in all directions, and his green eyes fixing Hermione's in an expression that was both relieved and angry on the same time. They looked at each other for a short time, Ginny glancing between them, until Harry seemed to settle his mind and darted out to give her a big hug as well.

Harry smelled just like he had 12 years ago and she hugged back dearly, suddenly reminded of all the things she'd been through thanks to him. If there was one person she'd never want to lose, it was Harry, after all. They'd made it through too many things together that she suddenly found herself wondering why she would ever want to throw all that away.

Harry stepped back and looked her over.

"You look different", he stated a bit disturbed, and Ginny sighed behind him.

"You look _beautiful_, Hermione. Can you two please step inside? We don't actually have to stay all day on the porch."

"Yes, of course, sorry. Come on in", Harry continued and stepped indoors. Hermione followed and found that the hallway looked a lot different than it had last time. It was repainted and brighter and more welcoming, and she could see that the curtains hiding the awful portrait in the end of the hallway were missing.

"You got rid of her", Hermione stated a bit surprised and Harry laughed.

"Yeah, but it took several employees from the Ministry and a lot of conviction to make it happen. Oh, and earplugs", Harry silenced and his gaze yet again settled on Hermione with a concerned look. "Where have you been?"

"Can you at least go and put on a kettle and let her step inside for half a second?" came Ginny's voice and Hermione could tell that it wasn't only for Hermione sake. Harry didn't seem to, though, because he nodded and headed down the hallway in the direction of the kitchen and left the two of them momentarily alone.

"How can you tell I'm pregnant?" Ginny hissed in a mixture of trying to understand and anxiety. "I'm not even sure myself!"

Hermione took Ginny's hand and felt a mixture of happiness, sadness, worry and jealousy stir in her stomach.

"You'll understand soon enough. I'll… I'll tell you everything."

The kitchen was one of the few things that had been renovated before her departure, and therefore looked more or less the same. A kettle with soon boiling water was standing on the stove and they sat down by the table, Ginny and Harry on one side and Hermione on the other. She suddenly wished she'd brought Draco along anyway, and not bother that the two in front of her probably wouldn't appreciate it.

"Where have you been?" Harry asked sternly, his tone familiar and demanding and made Hermione smile a bit. The smile, however, soon faltered and she sighed. She closed her eyes and started.

"I was in Russia, about a year ago. That's when I sent the last letter for you. Did you get it?"

The two of them nodded. She nodded in reply.

"A few weeks later I continued to Poland with a Finnish couple that were researching Mountain Garden Sage, I decided to accompany them. I separated from them in Poland because they wanted to continue to Germany but I didn't really just yet. One night I went to sleep one night and the next thing I know I'm in a deserted house in a forest I've never seen. All my equipment is gone and I feel like I'm going mad. I stayed in the house for two days, thinking I'd just been poisoned and that it'd go away on it's own with time... But it didn't."

* * *

**Author's Note**: Okay, first of all. Mountain Garden Sage is also known as Sage 'Bergartten' and comes from Germany. Secondly, I really try to make my story match the canon verse as much as possible. Ginny is most likely to be pregnant with their first child, James, in 2003. If he's born in 2004, he's 13 in the epilogue which is fully plausible.

**AN2:** Because I'm such a geek I just had to draw a pregnant Ginny. She not as pregnant here as she turned out in the drawing, but if you want to see it the link to my art blog can be found on my profile. Cheers.


	9. Chapter 9

Hermione silenced and watched the two in front of her. She was scared, scared of saying the few words that would change their way of looking at her forever. She hoped for a calm reaction, but if she knew them right, she wasn't going to get one from Harry. He'd be silent, but she'd be able to see what he was thinking anyway, and in a way that would be the worst reaction, because she knew it'd be thoughts that would stay in Harry's mind for a long time and then some more.

She took a deep breath and continued.

"One day a woman an a man appeared out of nowhere and took me away from there. My head was still spinning and when I woke up the next time I was in a big mansion in Sweden. It was… a nest."

Nest was, in lack of better word, the best way to describe what Carl's mansion actually was, but it sounded ugly on her tongue.

"A nest of what?" Harry's voice came, hard and distrustful. She met Harry's eyes for a second, before meeting Ginny's and then closed her own firmly.

"Vampires", she answered, determined to get this over with once and for all. "I'm a… vampire. I'm a vampire", she repeated in a confirming tone. When there was nothing heard from neither Harry nor Ginny, she peaked up. Harry was staring at her like she'd just told a horribly bad joke, and Ginny was frowning and repeatedly opening and closing her mouth.

"You're kidding", Harry said after a while. When she shook her head at him and she could see him tense up, she reached over and took his hand.

"I'm still alive, though, Harry. Feel it", she said, gripping his hand tightly and intertwining her fingers with his. Harry stared down at their hands and seemed not as near to explode anymore.

"I'm not dead", she continued. "I'm still breathing, and I still have my magic. I've just… stopped…", she struggled for the right words, "developing."

Which was the truth. While everyone she loved would grow older, more mature, wiser and stronger, weaker, happier and die, she'd be like a rock stuck in the timeline forever.

"Is that why the photo of you…", Harry asked, his expression slowly turning from annoyance to somewhat close understanding.

"Yes."

Harry nodded and silenced again, apparently needing a minute to process what'd just been said. Hermione looked to Ginny, who just looked plain sad and, which caused a tug in Hermione's chest, empathetic.

Ginny would become a great mom, Hermione suddenly thought and smiled as she felt her eyes getting watery. It shocked her, because she didn't remember the last time she'd been close to crying and Ginny suddenly reached over the table and caught her in another hug.

The hug was covered in the scents of affection and pregnancy, and made Hermione's heart clench even harder. She hadn't thought a lot of what being a vampire actually meant for her, but imagining it for her two friends suddenly made her realise and it filled her with sadness, exasperation, and again, jealousy.

"I'm sorry", she whispered into the long hair of Ginny's, and Ginny just hugged her tighter.

Eventually, Ginny let go of her and sat back down on the other side of the table. Hermione exhaled and straightened up, forcing the feelings back down and turned to Harry.

"You're really a vampire?" he asked, his tone now defeated and beaten. She understood that he didn't want to believe her, in the same time as he knew that she would never try to tell him lies.

He looked conflicted.

"Go ahead", she said and nodded and he looked relieved and uncertain on the same time. She closed her eyes again and relaxed, and she soon felt the interfering presence of Harry in her mind.

She let him see everything. Everything apart from the most intimate moments with Draco that she didn't really want Harry to ever see. He seemed to understand, eventually, what those hidden memories contained of and retreated.

When she opened her eyes Harry's wand was in his hand and he was gaping.

"You and Malfoy…?" he asked and caused Ginny to frown. Hermione didn't answer, because she knew the memories he'd just seen should be answer enough. Draco was a sensitive matter, and she knew Harry, and certainly not Ron, wouldn't be accepting of them automatically.

"Ron will be furious", Harry stated as if he understood her line of thought.

"I know", she answered.

"You should go see him."

She didn't stay much longer after that, because she could tell the two of them needed time to react properly. She offered to come back the next day and they agreed under the terms that she talked to Ron sometime before that. She reluctantly agreed and stepped out of the house with a heavy heart. She knew this had just been a probably easy start to something that would take time, and patience, and courage to go through. Since the day was still young she decided to head to the Burrow immediately, determined to not push things away anymore.

Her mind was still spinning with images of the soon to be Potter-Weasley family when she appeared in the corner of the Weasley's property. The Burrow looked overall like it had last time, exceptionally homey and welcoming in the afternoon sunlight. Feelings overwhelmed her and she lost balance for a second. With a loud breath she did what she had done too many times in her life already – straightened up and sobered up. She relaxed, forced the feelings back, back and out until they were deeply buried under firm determination.

She approached the front door, examining the house once again and noticing that there were, in fact, a few new additions and windows where there hadn't before. As she stepped closer she noticed that the house only held two people at the moment, both of them, if she was correct, in the kitchen.


	10. Chapter 10

She stopped in front of the door but didn't knock. She could hear the two of them inside, their voices now clear and telling her that it was Mrs Weasley and Ron who were bickering. She got so far as to raise her hand to knock when someone appeared behind her, accompanied by the familiar sound of apparating. She turned around and found a George staring wide-eyed at her.

"George", she stuttered and glanced around out of mere habit, stopping abruptly when George stepped up to her and hugged her unexpectedly.

She returned the hug, touched by the unusual show of affection from George. When he stepped back he looked sad and glad on the same time, and Hermione smiled.

"You look good", she said, because he did. The comment made George burst into laugh.

"I do? Have you looked at you? You look bloody fantastic! What evil magic has happened to your hair?!" he replied and made Hermione laugh, however uncomfortable about how correct he actually was. George didn't seem to notice.

"It's nice to see you, though. Mom will be so relieved, she's been fussing about you since the clo-", he suddenly stopped and grimaced. "I'll let them tell you themselves."

Then he stepped by her, and opened the door.

"Oi, look who I found standing outside like a lost little puppy", he said and the voices inside suddenly stopped and started shuffling. Mrs Weasley and Ron both appeared in front of her and while Mrs Weasley was the one to make a noise, she met Ron's eyes.

He didn't show any sign of happiness. Mrs Weasley stepped out and embraced her just as George had, if not a little tigher, while going on about how good is was to see Hermione again.

"We've been so worried about you, my dear, and when the papers announced you were back yesterday, I was so relieved I couldn't get a single thing done all day! What on _earth_ has happened to you?" Mrs Weasley continued as she let go of Hermione and stepped back into the kitchen. Only when they noticed Hermione didn't move from her place did Mrs Weasley silence and glance between her and Ron.

"Why don't you step inside, dear?" she then asked and Hermione suddenly found herself able to. With a frown she stepped over the threshold, and Ron was matching her frown when she looked back up. There was a moment of silence, until Mrs Weasley smacked her hands against her thighs and smiled widely.

"Well, why don't we all settle down in the kitchen so that you can tell us everything that has happened. My clock…", Mrs Weasley silenced, tilted her head and looked at Hermione with a mixture of relief and pain. "I'll make some tea!"

And then she walked down the kitchen to put on water. Hermione turned back to Ron and looked at him questioningly.

"What is it about her clock?" she asked, and Ron's mouth grew possibly even thinner.

"It showed that you were in mortal peril", he responded after a while, and Hermione stared at him, her feelings mixing up regarding the matter.

"I'm on your clock?" she mouthed and stepped closer and Ron seemed to grow even more infuriated.

"You've been on our clock for _years_, Hermione. And your hand has been on 'lost' and 'mortal peril' for almost a year until just three days ago", Ron replied in a hissed voice.

She silenced in surprise and gazed up at Ron. He was eyeing her, taking in the difference in her appearance, she'd guess. After a few seconds she turned on the spot and headed for the living room, where she knew she clock used to hang. She stopped in front of it and realised that she hadn't really ever looked at it after the War. Three new hands were added to it with hers, Harry's and Fleur's name on them, and they were all pointing at 'home' together with Mrs Weasley's, Ron's, George's, Ginny's, and Fred's. Percy's, Mr Weasley's and Charlie's were on 'work' while Bill's was on 'travelling'.

She stared at it, partly shocked over where her own hand was, but the hand she couldn't take her eyes of were Fred's.

Mrs Weasley appeared beside her and brought Hermione out of her thoughts. She looked around and noticed that both Ron and George had followed her into the living room as well, her gaze settling on George.

"Fred's…" she started and earned a smile from George.

"Fred's hand goes where mine goes. Bit of a stalker, really. Dunno if it's the clock glitching or not", he said, his voice mixed with both humour and sad warmth. She looked back to the clock, noticing that Mrs Weasley was the one eyeing her up this time.

"Are you alright, Hermione?" she asked and Hermione stopped the automatic "I'm fine" from being said and closed her mouth again. She grimaced.

"I'm kind of not", she answered and Mrs Weasley nodded.

They headed back to the kitchen and sat down by the big dining table (Mrs Weasley and Ron on one side, Hermione on the other) while George handed out cups of tea, before settling down next to her. Hermione sat silent and sipped on the hot tea, uncertain of how to begin.

"Did you die?" Ron suddenly asked, and Hermione's head snapped up to meet his eyes.

"Sort of", she answered eventually.

"Sort of? How can you _sort of_ die?!" he shot back and she winced. She could feel the anger radiating of him it felt like she could almost _see_ it, and (as Ron's behaviour always had been extremely contagious to her) it made her angry too.

"I died, okay? But I'm not _dead_", she responded and wanted him to understand the difference.


	11. Chapter 11

Ron just stared at her. Mrs Weasley was frowning with a mixture of concern and misunderstanding and Hermione shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She glanced at George and was a bit relieved to see that he seemed weirdly unbothered of what had been said so far.

The words 'I'm a vampire' suddenly sounded extraordinary ridiculous in her head. It was a surreal statement, however true, and this time she couldn't even force it out. She contemplated showing them, focusing on the sound of their blood and just let them _see_. She thought of telling them that she'd been stabbed just a few weeks ago and that there were no wounds to prove it, or tell them what George had been up to during the day because she could smell it on him.

Neither of the options seemed good. She sighed.

"I'm a vampire", she said in the end, her face crunching up in discomfort and worry. Her eyes were firmly shut as she continued explaining. "I don't remember how it happened, all I remember is waking up with my head spinning of everything and then I was brought to a big house where everyone ignored me, and all I knew was that I _wanted_ so many things. It took me a couple of weeks to get used to it. I still have my magic, thank Merlin, and if not for it I probably wouldn't be sitting here now. I'm still… I'm still getting used to it, but the laws regarding vampires are annoyingly good and… I'll live. I'll live, I'll just, not live like you will."

Their expressions had shifted remarkably when she opened her eyes again. George was staring at her now, Mrs Weasley looked exceptionally sad with a hand grasped over her mouth, and Ron was the one showing little to no emotion.

"Is that why you were at St Mungo's?" he asked, and the lack of reaction in his voice was like a gut-punch to Hermione.

"Yes", she answered and looked down at her hands. She heard the unasked question that lingered in the air.

"Draco is a descendant of the vampire who runs the house I lived in until three days ago. They came to visit and he helped me…", she struggled for the right words, unsure of the amount of things Draco had actually done for her. "He helped me with a lot of things", she ended up sighing. George made a baffled noise and when she looked back up at Ron, he was scowling again.

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

"Why didn't you let us know? We would have come for you", Ron bit out after a while. The statement made her chuckle in sarcasm, her temper quickly draining.

"What, so that I could have drenched you all on the spot? The _only_ reason I can sit here with you without going crazy is because a healer gave me a bloody blood bag yesterday! I've been _starving_ since I was turned and new… vampires, are remarkably bad at controlling themselves. I was... I was keeping you safe!" she shot back, her mind temporarily blinded with despair. She took a deep breath and immediately regretted her outburst, and she tilted her head.

"I'm sorry", she mumbled to the table before glancing up to meet Mrs Weasley's eyes.

"I'm sorry I didn't let you know I was… okay", she continued, her gaze flickering to Ron's on the last word.

Ron, however, seemed to have heard enough. He abruptly stood up and stormed out of the kitchen without a word and Hermione could hear his mother sigh.

"Give him some time, dear. He's been having a rough time these past months. He's happy you're safe."

Hermione raised a disbelieving eyebrow at Mrs Weasley.

"Happy?", she repeated and closed her hands around her cup of tea once again, her anger dripping of her quickly now that Ron had left. She groaned.

"I'm sorry for this. I really would have liked not for it to get so heated. I just got…"

Mrs Weasley just nodded in understanding and Hermione silenced, smiling gratefully to the woman in front of her.

"So that's the evil magic that happened to you hair, I'm guessing?" George chimed up from beside her and made Hermione suddenly titter and nod.

"Is it to lure us all into your evil hands until we practically beg for you to feed on us?" he continued, his voice dripping with humour and effectively reddening Hermione's cheeks in an instant.

"George!" Mrs Weasley reprimanded but George just sniggered louder.

"It's true, though, isn't it? I thought vampires were supposed to be master deceivers, but gee, Hermione, you are not fooling anyone."

He silenced and grinned at her, and she cleared her throat in hopes to get the pictures George was creating away from her eyelids. He leaned closer.

"Is that what you have Malfoy for? I bet he makes the sweetest noises," he said and then continued in a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like Draco. "'Hermione, please, fill my bed of eternal loneliness and we'll be evil creatures together forever!'"

"George!"

The bad impersonation, though, had broken the spell for Hermione and she burst out laughing.

"It's nothing like that, believe me", she said and George nodded at her in clear disbelief.

In front of them Mrs Weasley sighed and shook her head to show her disapproving, but she didn't say anything and just smiled when Hermione looked back at her. Hermione could tell, though, when she looked back at George who was continuing being ridiculous (which, by the way, was extremely relieving), that Mrs Weasley wasn't the least bit comforted by the answers she'd gotten.

* * *

**Author's Note**: There's been a few comments that the chapters are short, and I just want to repeat the fact, that yes, they are. I'm sorry for that but that's just how I've structured this story (and Summer in Sweden). Nowadays I try to let a chapter contain around 900 words, more or less. How long the chapter then appears depends on how much dialoge it's got. This way it's easier for me to write and post more frequently (and it's also why you sometimes get more than one chapter at once).


	12. Chapter 12

Hermione knew better than to actually leave without talking to Ron again, preferably in a calm and sophisticated manner. So when she headed upstairs to find wherever he'd gone to calm down, she wasn't really surprised to find him waiting on the second floor. He was sitting in a low sofa in an in-between room, fingers tapping against the armrest and gaze firmly shut on the floor. Hermione sat down beside him and it suddenly felt as if all her energy disappeared down a drain. She leaned her head against Ron's shoulder and felt him slowly relax and still his tapping fingers.

She understood his need to be mad. She wasn't going to ask him not to be, either. She'd do what Ron needed; wait and be patient and calm and open and accepting. He was one of her best friends after all, and for a time he'd been more than that, and sometimes it felt like she knew Ron and Harry better than she even knew herself. Especially now, when she was different in so many ways she hadn't even discovered yet.

She also understood that Draco was almost as sensitive a subject as the vampire part (if not more), and that was why he was yet to say anything about it.

When they headed back downstairs about 15 minutes later nothing had really been said between the two of them, but Ron wasn't oozing out madness like he had before. Mrs Weasley smiled fondly at them as they re-entered the kitchen, and the three Weasley's all followed her outside to bid her goodbye. Ron was the one to linger the last.

"Can I tell you a secret?" she whispered when he stood stiffly in front of her. He looked up with a frown that was more questioning than anything else. She looked over his shoulder to make sure the other two were out of earshot and leaned closer.

"Ginny and Harry are going to have a baby", she said, and the stunned expression on Ron's face made her smile widely. She retrieved her hand from Ron's shoulder and disapparated.

When she reappeared in front of the Malfoy Mansion, it was almost completely dark and she felt extremely tired. Not physically, because physically she felt better than ever, but the day had been long and filled with news and confrontations and feelings. When she reached the doors they opened and Draco stepped out to meet her. He looked uncertain and wary and without much thinking she stepped up to him, put her arms around his shoulders and caught his lips in a tired kiss. He looked surprised, but in a good way, when she broke the kiss.

"What's up with you?" he asked and she grimaced.

"I'm just tired. People are tiring", she responded and retrieved her arms from Draco's shoulders. He closed the doors behind them.

"I take it it didn't go too well?" he responded and she shook her head.

"It went better than I had imagined, actually", she said and continued explaining how the lot of them had reacted as they headed back for his bedroom. Somewhere along the way, Crookshanks joined them and curled his way around both her and Draco's legs.

"He's been moping for you all day", Draco said and earned a particularly stern glare from the cat. Hermione laughed.

"I've missed him too", she said, and earned a pair of raised eyebrows from Draco, well aware of the underlying meaning of their words.

Hermione collapsed down on Draco's wide bed with a loud groan and she felt herself thoroughly relax for the first time in the whole day.

"I'm never not going to sleep in anything but a bed ever again", she mumbled, thoughts referring both to the facts that she'd supposed to sleep in a freaking _coffin_ and to the too many days of her life that she has not actually slept in a proper one. Proper as in wide enough to turn around in without falling out, proper as in to have sheets that aren't too warm or too cold and smells nice, proper as in to make you never want to rise up in the morning or, best of all, proper as in to have another human being in it. If Hermione could wish for only one thing to ever have in her life, it'd probably be that.

She rolled around in the bed so that she came to lie on her back and watched Draco poke about in the room. He seemed to have earned Crookshanks trust sometime during the day, because the cat was currently tripping around him in a perfected dance of attention-seeking and non-bothering that Hermione knew too well.

She frowned as she looked back up at Draco, standing with his back to her, as she examined what she really was doing there. Not in any world would she have imagined himself with him. Perhaps, at most, she could've seen them as civil acquaintances or perhaps even weird friends, but nothing close to as it yet seemed to be now. She closed her eyes and recalled everything she'd felt for Ron, and noticed how different it was to everything she felt for Draco.

Ron had been like magnet who constantly shifted charge, while Draco felt like a steady piece of herself that would take a lot of serious breaking to get rid off.

The latter felt extremely more safer and a hell lot of scarier than she wanted.

She was fast asleep by the time Draco and Crookshanks joined her in the bed. Draco was feeling apprehensive and watched Hermione's sleeping form a long time before succumbing to it himself.

The day had, for Draco, been long and a lot more boring than he had assumed, and he'd found himself actually _waiting_ for Hermione to return. The cat, damn it, had seemed to known and followed him around in his heels until Draco had actually apparated to another end of the house to get rid of it. By the time she came home he was a bit than little worried about how deep in shit he was.


	13. Chapter 13

The following afternoon Hermione left to pay Harry and Ginny a quick visit again (Draco didn't understand _why_), but was back home only an hour and a half later.

"That was quick", he said as she found him in the library. She shrugged and leaned over his shoulder to see what he was reading.

"There wasn't much to do or say", she replied, her hands sneaking around his shoulders and clasped them in front of his chest. He could feel her resting a small portion of her weight against his back and leaning her chin on the top of his head.

"You alright?" he asked, tilting his head so that he could glance up at her, forcing her chin further down the side of his head. She nodded but still looked lost in thoughts, gaze locked somewhere far away.

"Ginny's pregnant", she said after a few moments of silence and Draco's eyebrows rose in surprise, then browed in a frown. He knew they were all old enough to have children already (his mother had half-jokingly nagged him about it a few times these past years), but in his mind he had a hard time imagining anybody in his own age or younger having babies. _Babies_.

"I'm really happy for them, of course. Ginny's going to be a lovely mother. But on the same time I just feel so… jealous", Hermione continued. Draco glanced up at her again, thoughts of Harry freaking Potter as a dad abruptly being replaced with thoughts of Hermione as a mother, and they filled his gut with a warm feeling he couldn't really place.

He was well aware of the fact that he fancied Hermione, more than he had ever fancied any girl before, and he was grudgingly accepting that that was only lightly put. He knew he wasn't supposed to like her, but wasn't he past that already? She was staying with them, with him, in the mansion, for Merlin's sake, and he knew that even if his father didn't really approve of their relationship, his father did not have a word in his choices anymore.

That Hermione seemed to choose him to get back to by the end of the night also didn't help. He knew she had no reason, not when it'd been her he'd been the biggest asshole to during the years. Now that she was back and more or less successfully reuniting with her true friends, Draco more and more wondered why it was still he she choose to kiss. He'd never before been with anyone without the feeling that they were with each other more or less because it was supposed of them, because their parents would nod approvingly and state how good they looked together.

He'd never been with anyone who'd share a laugh with him just before falling asleep, never been with anyone who genuinely sought his company in simple activies, like reading or taking a bath or just _talking_.

He broke from his thoughts with a grin. They'd been standing and sitting in silence for a while, and Draco's thoughts had inspired other kind of thoughts.

"Wanna take a bath?" he grinned, and she suddenly snorted.

"Are you saying I smell funny? Cause I took a shower just this morning", she replied and he spun his stool around under her arms, so that they were facing each other, and caught her hips between his hands.

"You smell really funny, yeah. That Potter stench is all over you, you can't blame me for wanting it off", he said and earned a laugh and a scowl in response.

"Fine", she said though, and seemed only a little annoyed over herself agreeing. "I guess I wouldn't mind a hot bath to clear my mind a bit."

Draco rose from his chair and promptly headed for the doors of the library, Hermione following behind but soon catching up with his steps (that really weren't that fast).

When they reached his room they could hear the taps already going in his bathroom, and Hermione scowled at him. When she opened her mouth to scold him (because she had, of course, asked him not to let Cranky do all the things he could perfectly do himself, but how could he help it when the elf went ahead of him and did things without Draco even asking?), he stepped closer and caught her lips between his. She huffed, at first, but soon seemed to let her thoughts go and replied to the kiss. When he broke the kiss she looked up at him with eager eyes and a smile, and he found himself unable to do anything but smile back. When they stepped into the bathroom the tub was already almost completely full and Draco leaned over to shut the taps off. When he straightened up and looked back at Hermione, she was already undressing.

She slipped into the water before him and sighed contently when her naked body disappeared into it. Draco was only a few steps behind, and found that the water wasn't as hot as it looked, but still hot enough to fill the room with steam and hot air. He took a few minutes to get used to it and relax. The bathtub was one of the reasons he'd switched to this particular bedroom when he'd gotten old enough to appreciate awesome things like a good bath (in other words when he'd been fifteen and got to taste the luxuries of being a prefect).

He opened his eyes when he felt movement in the water and saw Hermione moving from her spot in the tub. He sat up and met her with a wet kiss, his hands easily finding her naked skin in the water and enjoying how it felt. They hadn't taken a bath together before, and Draco was quickly suspecting he'd enjoy them even more from now on than he had before.

Because sex in a bathtub isn't the most convenient, they eventually got up and stumbled into bed without even drying off. Draco realised somewhere along the way that he didn't really give a rat's ass what was supposed of the two of them. When she pressed her forehead against his and mouthed his name against his ear he suddenly understood what it was he was constantly feeling in his stomach.

He was in love with her.


	14. Chapter 14

With that realisation settled, a weight he hadn't even noticed he'd had suddenly seemed to fall of his shoulders. He eased up, allowed himself to feel a little safer in Hermione's choice and kissed her more often than he had before. She seemed to enjoy the change in him, and when she told him she was going to visit Harry and Ginny again three day's later, she asked him to come along. It was a Sunday and Draco didn't find a good reason not too (even though he didn't really want to meet Potter or Weasley). Narcissa, who was going for a shopping stroll in Diagon Alley accompanied them out the gates and smiled when she noticed their clasped hands. She nodded them good-bye and disapparated with a quiet pop, and Hermione suddenly looked nervous beside him. He squeezed her hand and she looked up at him, and then he felt the familiar tug of apparating in tandem. The neighbourhood that appeared in front of him looked a lot like a typical London block with boring apartment after boring apartment.

"So this is Grimmauld Place?" he asked and Hermione nodded. When he followed her to the gate that housed a number 12 on it, Draco suddenly wondered what he was doing.

"Remind me again why I am coming with you?" he asked and she turned to glare at him.

"Because you're actually a bit kind deep down inside somewhere and I wanted you to come with. Besides, they want to meet you."

When he raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her she sighed, but she didn't seem as nervous anymore.

"They do!"

The door flew open before they've even reached it and the youngest Weasley (though she didn't look as young anymore) stood in front of them. Draco couldn't see a single trace of pregnancy on her, but he guessed that was just another of Hermione's vampire senses that allowed her to know.

"Hermione!" Ginny said and embraced Hermione, who let go of Draco's hand to return the hug. Draco stayed on the stairs a few steps down, watching as the two women separated and the red headed one faced him.

She squinted at him with a stern face, and he stood put. It wasn't until his gaze flickered to Hermione that Ginny seemed to deem him worthy of a greeting.

"Nice to meet you, Malfoy", she said and offered him a hand, that he surprisingly took.

"You too", he replied, because he was well mannered like any Malfoy ought to be. Ginny looked back at Hermione with an entertaining look on her face.

"Well, come on in. Harry's in the back with Teddy", she said and motioned for them to follow her indoors.

Draco looked himself around as he followed the two of them through the house, because even if it had belonged to his mother's aunt and uncle, he'd never been there. It looked bigger than he'd anticipated from outside and he guessed that it probably was enlarged by magic. He felt weirdly at home for being a stranger, as if the floor and walls in the house recognized him as belonging there. It looked newly renovated, though, and was decorated in bright and welcoming colours, which he guessed it hadn't had when the Blacks had inhabited it.

They walked all the way through the house until they came out into a small, private yard on the backside, where Harry Potter and a small boy were bouncing a big ball.

"Harry!", Ginny interrupted and the boy (man now) Draco had learnt to hate suddenly straightened up and met his eyes. "They're here."

The boy looked up at the two of them with big, curious eyes. His hair was bright turquoise and there was no denying that this was the son of his late cousin Nymphadora Tonks.

"Who's that?" the boy asked loudly and Harry took his hand and approached them.

"This, Teddy, is Hermione. You remembered what we've told you about her, haven't you? She haven't seen you since you were a wee baby", Harry explained to the kid, who didn't really seem to remember what he'd been told about Hermione.

"And this is, er, your uncle, sort of. Draco Malfoy's his name, and he's a real bugger if you ask me", and the kid chuckled. Draco would have been a little more offended if he had not.

"I didn't know I had an uncle", the kid said, his wondering gaze shifting to Ginny's, as if he didn't really trust Harry's words. Ginny nodded.

"You do. You know your mother, Tonks?"

Teddy nodded seriously.

"Draco here is her cousin. Their mother's were sisters."

The kid returned to stare at Draco and he found himself suddenly wanting the boy to not hate him.

"So his momma and my nanna are… sisters?" the kid tried and earned wide beams from his two surrogate parents.

"Exactly!" Ginny replied. Harry rose up to give Hermione a hug, and then offered a hand to Draco with less thought than Ginny had. Draco shook it with a "Potter", and only briefly noticed how Hermione and Ginny grinned at them.

"Let's have some tea then, shall we?" Harry continued and Teddy suddenly jumped in excitement. Hermione stiffly took a step back, closer to Draco, and when they followed the others indoors, Draco noticed her take an extraordinary deep breath.

He raised his eyebrows in a silent question, and she smiled weakly at him.

"I understand what Carl meant about being around children", she murmured as she took another step closer to him.

* * *

**Author's Note**: Since my story takes place in 2003, Teddy is about 5 years old. And yes, I went with the turquoise hair because that's what's headcanon for Teddy.


	15. Chapter 15

"You were real friendly today", Hermione teased when they were finally back home. Draco snorted.

"And Teddy seemed to really like you, too", she continued, and she was right. The boy had been up his face the whole time since they sat down for tea and asked him to tell him everything he knew about his mother and grandmother and if he had other secret uncles and cousins he didn't know about. It'd entertained Draco good enough to see Harry being a little uncomfortable with it, but he'd indulged Teddy in his interest and for that Draco was, to be honest, impressed. Harry and Ginny did certainly seem to be good parents to the kid and Draco was sure his own mother would be rather happy to hear about that.

Imagining Potter as a father suddenly didn't seem too absurd anymore. Not when he seemed to have grown up from a bipolar boy to a man who actually appeared _normal. _

When Hermione crawled down under the cover beside him she looked a bit worried.

"For me, Teddy was… a handful even at a distance. I don't see… how I'm ever supposed to have children on my own if I can't even stand being around one five year old", she sighed as she turned around to face Draco.

"I doubt you'll feel like that with your own children", he replied. "Besides, you'll get used to it. It's not like you'll have three five years olds at one time."

She nodded.

"Unless I get triplets", she stated and Draco snorted out a sudden laugh at the thought of her being pregnant with triplets. She chuckled beside him.

"What? It could happen."

"Yeah, well, even if that does happen, they'll come out as babies and not as five year olds and babies are not nearly as bouncing. You'll be used to it by the time they're five."

He could feel her smile against his shoulder.

"That's true", she mumbled in response and curled an arm around his stomach, exhaling sleepily and snuggling if possibly closer.

For Hermione, the past days had been the best since she'd woken up in that cottage in Germany. She'd felt happy, bordering on giddy, whenever she'd notice Draco's eyes on her and how he leaned closer for a kiss more often then not. She'd been nervous about him meeting Harry, but they'd both been more than civil and actually talked about things on their own accord (which was way more than she had hoped from Draco). Teddy had been troublesome and wonderful on the same time and her heart had melted a little bit when the kid seemed to take a liking to his new uncle.

She buried her face in the crook of his neck and relished in the feeling. He was probably right about her getting used to children eventually, and that it would be different if she ever got her own kids.

She lied awake for a whale, listening to the sounds of his body and how soothing his heartbeat had become for her.

"I love you", she whispered into his neck when he was certain he'd fallen asleep, but when he tightened his grip around her, she suddenly wasn't so sure anymore.

"I heard that", he mumbled and confirmed her wrong.

When they woke up the following morning it was by the sunlight peeking through the curtains and hitting them straight in the face. Draco groaned, rolled around and pulled the cover over their heads. He could tell Hermione was trying to say something, even though he had yet to open his eyes. He eventually peeked an eyes open to help her get somewhere.

"Did you…", she started, suddenly seeming to revert to the shy and uncertain girl he hadn't seen very much of lately. He grinned.

"No, I didn't hear anything last night. You should probably say it again, just to be certain", he said and got a light punch to the chest as a response. He laughed.

"What?"

She glared at him, but a smile was tugging in the corners of her mouth.

"Git."

He laughed again.

"We should get up", Hermione continued after a while, but made no move as of to actually do so.

"Why?"

"Because it's past nine and your mum wanted to have breakfast with us."

She was, as always, right. Draco knew that they were not long away from being officially awoken by Cranky, and then they'd have no excuse not to get up. So he rose up from the bed and headed for the bathroom. When he returned, Hermione was still lying in the bed.

"Oi, I'm not the only one having breakfast. Get up", he tried to complain, but when she simply rolled around and groaned he allowed himself to get back into the bed to thoroughly wake her up. He leaned down over her and waited for an explanation.

"It's so sunny", Hermione sighed but opened her tired eyes to look up at him. "I'm not even hungry", she continued even though she was very well aware that the breakfast included her if she wanted to or not.

"Not hungry?" he echoed and leaned closer so that his face was ghosting just above hers and he could see the shimmer of red that suddenly glimmered in her iris. When she raised her head to close the small distance between them, he leaned out of reach and forced her to follow. She was practically sitting up by the same she huffed in annoyance and gripped his jaw to hold him still, finally pressing her lips to his. Draco responded to it before he grinned and broke the kiss. He rose up from the bed and lifted his hands up to show her how she was practically half out of bed already.

"See, you're already sitting up. You're welcome", he said and headed for the wardrobe, Hermione glaring after him, but still sitting up, with her hair standing on end and wearing nothing but underwear.


	16. Chapter 16

His mother kept smiling at them when she thought he didn't notice, but he did.

Even though it was getting noticeably chillier in the air, it was still hot enough to have breakfast (bordering on brunch, really) out in the garden. Hermione had left the shadow to join Crookshanks out on the grass, and her pale skin looked misplaced in the greenery.

Draco frowned, and didn't even need to see the face of his mother to know that she was raising her eyebrows at him, asking several questions without even mouthing them.

"I met Theodore Lupin yesterday", he responded, even though it had nothing to do with what his mother was actually wondering. She looked surprised.

"Andromeda's grandson?" she asked, and he nodded in reply.

"He seemed happy", he continued after a while, and his mother smiled weakly. He knew that she'd probably say something if it wasn't for Hermione's presence, something not very thought-through and too much like they used to talk like back in the days when they didn't think anybody mattered except their own family. He wasn't the only one in the family who had grown up a bit since the war, after all.

The following days they fell easily into some sort of routine. Hermione got her first delivery of blood bags on a Thursday and Draco thought he'd never seen her look more alive since he'd gotten to know her the day after that. Even her skin didn't feel as chilly compared to his own, and he understood that she stereotypical traits of a vampire she had sported recently was mainly because she'd practically been starving herself, and were not the conditions of how a vampire with a steady diet.

They went to the Diagon Alley on a Saturday so that Hermione could regain access to her account in Gringotts, as she had gotten her key back from Harry a few days prior.

"Why are they all glaring at you?" Draco asked her, a bit entertained, when they were there, because for every step they took the elves turned around to pointedly glare in their direction. Hermione, to his surprise, actually looked a bit annoyed.

"It could be because they lost their pet dragon partly because of me", she replied, one of the tales from the War Draco had especially hard believing in.

"Which, by the way, they were treating awfully. No animal should be held prisoner like that, deep down under the ground, even less a dragon," she continued before he even gathered wits enough to say anything.

When they finally reached her vault and stepped inside, he was surprised to find it stuffed mainly with things that were not money. She picked out a dozen books from the several piles of them and stuffed them down her never-ending bag, together with some files with paper and notebooks. In the end she grabbed some money, both galleons and muggle.

People kept staring and whispering around them once they were back outside, but they were both used to it enough to not let it go to their heads. Hermione slipped her hand into Draco's somewhere along the way and it wasn't until they were back at the Leaking Cauldron that they ran into someone they actually knew.

"Hermione!", they heard and all of a sudden stood face to face with a Neville Longbottom who grew up to look way too good compared to how he used to have looked, according to Draco. He could feel Hermione tense beside her when Neville's gaze darted between the two of them, and then down to their entwined hands.

"Neville…" Hermione replied, and Neville suddenly leaped forward and gave her a hug. Draco took a step away when Hermione let go of his hand to return the hug.

"How are you doing?", Neville started, and once he'd started he seemed to not know how to stop. "The paper's been writing a billion silly things about you! You look amazing though, I'm so happy to see you for real, I had to go see Harry to know if you were actually back or if the Daily Prophet was just making it all up. Did you hear that I'm going to be startin' at Hogwarts next week? I'm so nervous, but Madam Sprout…"

Hermione looked at him with big eyes and gaped.

"Wait, stop, Neville, are you saying what I think you're saying?" she interrupted and Neville just nodded enthusiastically back at her.

"I'm only going to be an assiastant to Madam Sprout, of course, but she's been going on forever about retiring and return to researching again and…"

"That is so great, Neville! Good for you", Hermione said and gave him another hug, successfully shutting Neville up this time around.

"I would love to catch up better, Hermione, but I'm in a bit of a hurry. You should come visit the school, though. Everyone would love to see you and hear what you've been up to, I promise."

"Maybe", was the crypt answer Hermione gave, and glanced at Draco. Neville followed her gaze and turned to face him for the first time. He suddenly got a more serious look on his face, and Draco almost didn't recognize him with the boy he used to send mean sparks after back in their first year.

"Good to see you, Malfoy. Take care of Hermione, will you? She's known to get into trouble", Neville said and then left with a last smile to Hermione, and Draco was left flabbergasted on the spot.

"I don't know when that happened either", Hermione said beside him with an entertained tone in her voice.


	17. Chapter 17

"It's my birthday in two weeks", Hermione stated as if it was something she'd forgotten and then suddenly been reminded of. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her book lying forgotten in her heads and her gaze staring at nothing. Draco, who was sitting in the window, looked up at her.

"I'm sorry", he replied eventually and Hermione focused on him, her gut clenching in a different way than it did by the thought of her birthday. The rain was hitting the windows softly and it was dark outside, even though the clock couldn't be more than three. She put her book down beside her and rose up, walking over and sitting down in the window seat in front of him. She looked him over, savouring and filing and saving every little detail of him deep down in her mind. She let her gaze linger on everything she wanted to remember.

"Stop that", he suddenly said and she straightened up a little bit. She would decline doing anything at all, if she could, but she knew he knew her too well too.

"I'm not going anywhere", he continued and glanced up from his book, and she suddenly felt sad, her mind fighting her emotions.

"You are, though, aren't you? You'll be…" _growing old and die_, she thought, but bit her lips to keep it unsaid.

Draco leaned over and caught them in a kiss. Hermione pressed back, bringing her hands up around Draco's neck in effort to convince herself that he wasn't going to disappear. She knew she was being silly, as well as she could hear Draco's heartbeat drumming in her ears, but they thought of making him stay never disappeared how hard she tried to press it out the back of her head.

The taste of Draco's mouth was even better then that of the blood bag she'd had the day before, which was to say something. She moved closer so that she came to sit cradled over him, seeking out every bit of contact they could have. Draco's warm hands had already sneaked their way under the hem of her shirt, and were following the lines of her back softly.

Her senses were going haywire. It felt like every little nerve in her body were jumping in desperation for _something_, for drawing out any little sound from Draco that she'd never heard from anybody else. Her mind filled up with the sound of his body, the smell of his attraction and the sound of his fluttering heart. She buried her nose in his throat against the sound of the blood pulsing through the artery, and she slowly pulled her tongue over it, involuntarily imagining what it'd be like sinking her teeth into it. She straightened up to find his mouth again, twisting her hands into his hair and arching up to get even closer. He made one of those noises right about then, partially muffled by the kiss which went straight to the pool of heat already deep in Hermione's stomach.

She knew it was getting too much. She could feel her canines growing and feeling in the way and just right on the same fucking time, and Draco slowly but surely appeared more thoroughly in front of her, the spots on him were a bite would be most fatal gaping at her completely unprotected.

"Draco, I…", she tried, closing her eyes and grimacing, because she wanted to never stop what they were doing. Draco kissed her collarbones, letting his tongue glide over her skin and his hot breath follow.

"I love you", he said, his kisses stopped and Hermione froze in her position. When she looked down, Draco met her gaze with certain and unafraid eyes and she could feel the air shift around them. When she leaned down to kiss him, there were no teeth in the way.

After that, Hermione was determined to find out whatever that feeling had been. It still lingered, several day's later, in the back of her mind, the desire to make Draco hers to keep forever. She spent several hours in the library reading up what she could about vampires but not really finding anything she didn't already know. In the end, she slipped out of bed in the dead of night and apparated to Sweden.

Carl seemed to have waited for her, because he opened the front doors to the mansion just as she appeared on the courtyard. He silently waited for her to step inside, and then showed her the way to the room she had confronted Draco in the first day he'd been there.

"I was hoping this wouldn't have happened, at least not so soon, but I guess I was wrong about the relationship between the two of you", Carl suddenly said and Hermione didn't even bother wondering how he knew what she was here for.

"What do you mean?" she asked, and she felt scared for the answer. Carl sat down and motioned for Hermione to do the same. She reluctantly sat down in the armchair next to him. He sighed.

"You know that vampire's aren't meant to be alone. We seek out companionship, almost desperately, because were doomed to live forever and there's nothing worse than to spend forever alone", Carl started. "It can't be hard for some to understand the need to find a mate, rationally, but it's something we cannot help but want. A vampire can have romantic relationships without ending up mates, but if it's a good enough match, it usually happens eventually. Draco's… genetically, not a good match for you. He'll never be able to spend forever with you, and even if he, as you mate, will be willing to spend the rest of _his_ life with you, those years will pass quickly and your grief after his death will be the worst thing you'll ever experience."

Carl silenced for a second, and Hermione, however many questions she still had on the tip of her tongue, kept her mouth closed. She knew Carl would know what the death of a mate actually felt like.

"I thought that would be enough for the bond between the two of you not to grow strong enough. Mates… the love between mates are one of the strongest and fiercest and most dangerous bonds in the world. Your mate will be the love of your life, the reason to stay alive at all; crucial like your own heart had been when you were still human. It sad, really, that vampires are known to the world as one of the most cruel creatures in the world, because of what we eat, when we're also one of the creatures in the world that are capable of such love."


	18. Chapter 18

_**Author's Note:**__ I just want to repeat the fact that in my stories, the Malfoy's are descendants of Carl and Estelle (vampires). As a result they cannot be turned, or killed by one. So while Hermione is cursed to be a vampire, Draco is blessed/cursed to never be one. Their story will never end with 'happily-forever-after'. Sorry.  
_

* * *

"I'm not saying that the two of you shouldn't continue being together, I just want to make you aware what it'll mean if you do. If it's going to be worth it. If the bond is fulfilled, you'll never be able to find a mate in someone else."

Carl silenced for a moment and took a deep breath.

"It'll break his heart, too, for every year he grows older and you do not. It'll break his heart knowing you'll be left alone when he's gone, because he _will_ go, eventually."

Hermione felt her eyes tearing up by the thought of it, but she bit them back.

"What should I do?" she asked, because she felt hollow inside, completely uncertain of what to do, a feeling she hadn't had so many times in her life.

"If you stay with him, the two of you will share something extraordinary. You'll be able to have children, which'll be one of the greatest things you'll ever experience. When he dies, you'll die too, and when your children dies, and grandchildren, it'll be just as bad, cause you'll see every tiny bit of him in them. If you leave him, you'll be able to find somebody else. So will he. You'll never have kids, but your mate will stay with you forever, and Draco'll be able to grow old with someone that'll grow older too. He'll have a lesser, human love, and he might break his love's heart, but it'd be nowhere near what he'd do to yours. What you _should_ do… is completely up to you."

When Hermione didn't look up from the floor, Carl continued.

"If you'll stay with him, of course, you'll have to be able to control your want to turn him. If you give into it, he wont die, and he wont turn, but believe me, it'll scare the both of you deeper than anything. His blood… his blood will be the best thing you've ever tasted. If you lose control, it'll be the only thing you'll be able to think of."

"When we… with Peter and them others, in the tunnel, Draco got hurt... it took everything in me not to charge at him, it smelled like nothing I've ever experienced before", Hermione murmured, her attention lost in the memory of it.

"Last night I felt it again for the first time, the need to just… that's why I came", she continued, and looked up at Carl.

"It won't be the last, and it won't get easier, but you'll get stronger. If you keep a steady diet, it'll help too. I understand you've gotten a subscription through the hospital in London?"

Hermione frowned.

"How did you know that?", she asked, and Carl smiled.

"I'm old enough to have friends about everywhere. I wouldn't just let you disappear out of sight, would I?"

The fact made Hermione feel a bit uncomfortable, but on the same time she understood. If she'd been Carl, she'd want to keep an eye out for herself too.

"I don't know what to do", she sighed after a while.

"That is understandable. You always have your room here if you want to think things over. But I suggest you don't take too long, or Draco'll make the decision for you."

She nodded and stood up. Carl looked up at her, with an expression of pity in his features that she didn't really need at the moment.

She left.

Later, she wouldn't be able to remember what she did for several days after that. She found herself on the other side of the world when she felt herself come back to awareness, standing in front of a mediocre house in a small village in Australia. The only resemblance it had to her childhood home was the garden, because her father was blessed with the most magical green fingers a muggle could have. It was early afternoon, and the thing that brought her out of her reverie was the sound of a child laughing. She walked a few steps up the street so that she was able to sneak a look into the garden, and she was met of the sight of a jolly two-year-old running towards her.

"Harry!"

She had apparated away before she'd even considered the consequences of apparating in the middle of a street in broad daylight.

She reappeared in an alleyway two towns over, and leaned her forehead against the wall. She stood like that for several minutes before apparating again.

She saw a familiar house in front of her without really seeing it, and it took yet another several minutes before whoever was home noticed her. Out of the front door George eventually emerged, and he seemed to be the only one home, because no one else followed him out.

"Hermione!" he called before he even reached her, because she stood a several hundred meters from the house.

"Merlin's beard, are you alright? Everybody's out looking for you", he continued once in front of her, reaching out for her shoulders and leaning down to examine her. Hermione, however, had trouble focusing on him.

"They named him Harry", she mumbled, causing George to frown.

"Who named who Harry?" he repeated. Hermione finally looked up and met George's gaze.

"My parents. My parents named their new baby Harry."

It took about ten minutes for George to lurke Hermione indoors, and somehow along the way he must've managed to alert the others, because only shortly after she'd been sat down on a chair in the kitchen did a huge mass of people stumble indoors. Mrs Weasley, Mr Weasley, Harry & Ron were followed by a Draco who didn't seem to feel the least bit of hesitance to step inside the Burrow.

Hermione, who had gotten a nice cuppa tea placed in front of her just previously (which was currently waking her up quicker and quicker by the heat seeping through her fingers), knew instantly who she'd choose to spend the rest of her life with.

She turned around to respond the hugs they gave her, all long and tight and filled with relief, and she whispered soft pleas of sorry in their ears as the kitchen was filled with the sound of several voices speaking at once.

When the people she had for several years regarded as family stepped aside to let Draco step up to her, she hugged him tighter and longer than any of the else. She didn't say anything, because she knew she had a lot of things she had to tell Draco that she couldn't say in front of them all, and Draco didn't say anything either, so Hermione guessed he was probably thinking along the same lines.


	19. Chapter 19

**Author's Note**: _I'm a bit in the dark regarding how this story is going to end, because it could go on forever. I also have a future story as to what happens when Hermione's brother grows up. On another note, I'm sorry that I'm updating so very slowly lately! I've just finished school and started working like crazy instead, and I'm getting married in 2 and a half week, and my grandma is dying, so my life is really upside down at the moment. This chapter happened thanks to one or two lovely reviews that made me feel bad not for writing and good on the same time because the longer this story goes on, the more I seem to doubt it (and your reviews make me think otherwise for a while).. I will never, however, abandon this story! I know, as a reader, that that is the worst thing. Chapters will come, however they may take some time. I hope you'll be patient with me._

* * *

When she woke up the next morning, it was to the soothing sound of Draco's breath. She could've known it was his in a crowd, by now, and so she lay there in the bed just listening for a long while. She shuffled over and settled her face against his neck, felt the urge of want revolting in her stomach, but because she knew what it was she was able to hold it back.

Draco rolled over and flung an arm around her back, successfully covering her up even more.

"We're mating", Hermione suddenly said, and involuntarily tensed for whatever reaction she was going to get.

"Mhm", was Draco's answer. Hermione snaked herself just a little bit out of his grip, just enough to get a look on Draco's face. She would've taken him for being asleep if she couldn't hear his heartbeat, which didn't either show any proper reaction.

"Are you aware of what that means?" she continued, unwilling to ask but asking anyway.

"I can guess", Draco answered. "My summers in Sweden have probably given me a more accurate understanding than most, at least", he continued, his eyes still closed and his heartbeat even.

Hermione only hummed in reply, her mind boggling with a billion thoughts at once. It had been an enormous mistake to go to Australia, although in the aftermath she could understand why she probably had. When she was younger, it had always been her mum that she used to go to whenever she had had boy-trouble, which frankly, had been more often than she ever would have guessed. She had never imagined herself ending up with someone, _marrying_ someone. She'd be a real businesswoman, a one-of-a-kind, and if she'd ever want a kid she'd adopt one, because just the thought of giving birth used to give her serious chills.

That was, of course, until she fell in love for the first time. She had fallen in love with Ron slowly, so slowly she hadn't even realised it until it was too late to turn back. He had made her sad and he had made her happy, and she still held a furious love for him, but so did she for Harry, and her parents.

Her parents.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Draco mumbled, and she didn't know if he meant what she just brought up, or what she'd been up to the past couple of days. Perhaps it didn't matter.

"Yes and no", she replied, because that was the truth. She sighed.

"I don't want to talk about my parents. I'm going to… I'm going to let them be. They're happy, they've got… Harry, and besides, what would I say? 'Hullo, sorry to bother, I just wanted to let you know that you're my parents, but you don't remember me because I'm the brightest witch of my age, and yes, magic exists, and by the way, I'm a vampire, would you like to introduce me to my baby-brother, who you may or may not have sub-consciously named after the Boy who lived?'"

Draco chuckled.

"That does sound a bit mental, yeah", he mumbled into her head.

"Thank you", she replied, both satisfied and thankful that he didn't push her decision. It was a decision she had already done a few years back, anyway, when she had originally taken the decision to obliviate them.

"What we should talk about, however, is us. We can't…", she silenced, struggling to think about it without getting her emotions all over the place about it.

"…last forever", Draco finished, and finally opened his eyes to look at her with a concerned face. She nodded.

They fell silent, and Hermione could feel the tension settling in Draco's shoulders. She suddenly remembered what Carl had said about how Draco would probably feel about the whole thing.

"I want to have what we can, though", she said. "I really do. For as long as we can, I want to."

When she dared a glance up at Draco's face, he was smirking in a way that didn't at all feel as serious as she felt herself. She huffed and made to move out of his grip, but he tightened his arms and buried his head even deeper in her hair.

"Good", she heard and she couldn't help but give a half-hearted laugh at the answer.

When they finally rose from bed, about half an hour later, Hermione felt different. Several hours passed before she realised what it was. They were sitting in the garden, and Hermione had put her book away to pay some attention to Crookshanks, when she suddenly snapped her head up in Draco's direction, successfully earning a signature eyebrow lift in return.

"I can feel you", she said, surprised at the revelation herself. Draco frowned and Hermione got an impatient head-butt from Crookshanks who had noticed her shift in attention.

"I can feel you", she repeated, tasting the words and realising what it meant. She _could_ feel him, at the back of her mind, tugging and giving away subtle messages like mild irritation.

"Yes, I heard you the first time, thank you", Draco replied. "What do you mean, feel me? I'm sitting way over here", he continued, motioning exaggeratedly at the distance between them, which was only half a meter or so.

When Hermione didn't immediately answer, mentally exploring what she'd just discovering and apparently taking to long for Draco to keep interest.

"She just as mental as you, honestly", she could hear him mumble as Crookshanks gave up on Hermione and jumped over to Draco's knee instead.

"It's a very vague feeling of you, as if it's something at the tip of my tongue but not quite my thought. I can tell that you're… content, and just a slight bit bored, a slight bit interested, and a slight bit hungry. It's a… different kind of hunger than mine", she continued after a while, making Draco pause from his book yet again. He frowned.

"Wow, talk about lack of privacy I'll ever have, then."


End file.
